


not here to sing your praises

by vapiddreamscape



Series: The Fairytale Project [4]
Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Rapunzel (Fairy Tale), Rapunzel - All Media Types
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, Or Friendship, Pre-Relationship, Revisionist Fairy Tale, because i'm not actually sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 07:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5860249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vapiddreamscape/pseuds/vapiddreamscape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"At first, the suitors show up in scattered intervals, one every few months. But as news of her existence spreads across kingdoms, more of them make the pilgrimage. She meets fortune-seekers young as twelve and ailing kings in search of one last conquest before they meet their graves. Seven years later, she’s still turning them away."</p><p>When a lost traveler stumbles across her tower, Rapunzel realizes she might have found her escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not here to sing your praises

Rapunzel had just turned thirteen when the first man stumbled upon her tower. She had been brushing her hair, a task that took hours on a good day. He was dressed like a king and old enough for his hair to begin graying at his temples. His smile oozed across his lined skin, and she felt like he was leeching into her. She threw a stale roll at his head and that night, she scrubbed until at least three layers of skin came off.

It doesn’t get better from there.

At first, they show up in scattered intervals, one every few months. But as news of her existence spreads across kingdoms, more of them make the pilgrimage. She meets fortune-seekers young as twelve and ailing kings in search of one last conquest before they meet their graves. Seven years later, she’s still turning them away. 

Invariably, they offer her the same things. They write odes to her beauty. Some, fool enough to compose their verses before their first meeting, describe her ebony hair flaxen and her tawny skin in similar shades of gold. Her freedom is offered next, in exchange for her hand in marriage. On the busiest days, she has to turn down three would-be husbands before breakfast.

It’s not that she doesn’t want her freedom. Mother Gothel might not let her “daughter” out into the world, but that doesn’t mean the world doesn’t come to her. For all her caution, Gothel isn’t too vigilant with the reading material she allows into the tower.

Rapunzel figured out long ago their relationship wasn’t normal. None of the mothers in her stories locked their daughters in doorless towers. But if she’s learned anything else, it is that relationships built on beauty crumble under the test of age. Most of her suitors won’t let her get a word in edgewise before asking her to let down her hair. Half of them don’t bother to learn her name.

She’d rather stay locked up until she died before she entered into wedlock with any of them.  Once they start coming more often, she promises herself if one shows sign of caring more for her than her beauty, she will find a way to leave with him. After her fifteenth birthday, she stops holding her breath.

It’s a few hours past midday when the latest wanders into her clearing. And, truly, that’s the only word she can find to describe it. He seems to move with the wind, swaying back and forth with each step. A traveling cloak made of dirt and tatters sits around his shoulders and his skin is coated with a dusting of hard travel. Rapunzel shakes her head; most of them try to clean themselves up before trying to curry her favor.

“Don’t waste your time,” she calls. This man is the fourth one today, though the first to look younger than fifty. “Go back from whence you came.”

The young man stops a few feet from the base of her tower and his eyes turn lazily heavenward, though veering off in a vastly different direction than her face. “I’m afraid that’s going to be quite difficult. I’m rather lost.”

“How creative. I haven’t heard that one before. Did you happen to bring along your lute and a song you wrote about my beauty as well?”

“I’d just like to know where I am,. And perhaps the location of the nearest town, if that wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

Her eyes just might fall out of her face if this goes on any longer. “You saw the incredibly large, doorless tower in the middle of nowhere and thought “This looks like the home of the maiden who knows where things are’?”

A chuckle floats up. “That is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve when one is blind.”

“So…you didn’t come to sing praises to my beauty then offer my freedom in exchange for marriage?”

“Sorry, no. I can if you would like, though you would have to tell me what you look like first. Otherwise, I’d have to guess and I’m assuming you wouldn’t find that favorable. In any case, you’d probably find my singing deplorable as everyone else who hears it…I’m sorry. I’m rambling and have yet to ask you so much as your name.”

“Rapunzel.”

“That’s an interesting name. I’ve never heard the like. I’m Jeremiah, son of the king of Rhine. Why, Lady Rapunzel, are you locked in an incredibly large, doorless tower in the middle of nowhere?”

She’s not quite sure how to answer, coming to the stunning realization that in seven years, no one else has bothered to ask her. Brevity seems the best way to go. “My mother, who is not actually my mother, has bizarre ideas about parenting.”

“That is…not the strangest thing I have ever heard, though I don’t know if that says something about you or about me.”

A giggle escapes before she can stop it and she realizes it’s the first time one of her visitors has made her laugh at anything other than their sheer ineptitude. Rapunzel runs down the checklist of her thirteen-year-old self. _Doesn’t care about my beauty: check. Shows absolutely no signs of wanting marriage: check. Makes me laugh: a nice bonus…I have to try, don’t I?_

“Jeremiah, would you be interested in a trade?”

“Perhaps. Depends on the trade.”

“I have some maps up here. If you figure out a way to get me out of here, I’ll use them to help you find your way to wherever you want to go.”

“If your mother doesn’t want you going anywhere, why did she give you maps?”

“She still wanted me educated and…doorless tower. It’s not like I’m going to be able to use them.”

“Perfect. Right, well, I’ll see what I can do.” He says, meeting her eyes and cracking a smile. “Actually, I won’t but…”

“Thank you,” she cuts in.

“Don’t bother. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do. I would have offered if you hadn’t. Do you have any ideas?”

“Maybe one or two. Here, try this.” She tosses her hair out the window and smiles for the first time in seven years.


End file.
